


back to the floor

by allandmore99



Series: nobody know [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Fighting As Foreplay, Happy Ending, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29317146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allandmore99/pseuds/allandmore99
Summary: Nile could tell that Andy and Booker were particularly close. She just got the wrong impression about the exact nature of their relationship.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman, background Joe/Nicky - Relationship
Series: nobody know [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189418
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	back to the floor

**Author's Note:**

> This work brought to you by: my deep and abiding feelings for the plane fight scene, my butchering of poor San Marino’s history to suit my own creative needs, and that one scene in the comics where Andy threatens to give Nile a spanking. 
> 
> (And also this prompt: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/2726.html?thread=659366#cmt659366)

Nile realised, in the aftermath of her electrifying fight with Andy on the plane, that she must have misread the signals she thought she was picking up. There had been so much chemistry between them from the get-go; Nile had tussled plenty with her squad mates, but it had never felt like that before, like every move she made Andy was there waiting for her, flushed and alive, with that damned grin on her face. 

Nile thought she had understood that look, thought that maybe this immortality thing wasn’t going to be so bad if she had incredibly hot warrior women interested in her, but as the surreal next few days played out, she started to think that she had been way off the mark, mistaken casual admiration for the same curl of desire she felt in her gut. First there was the whole story about Quynh, which Nile thought made it pretty clear that Andy wasn’t ready for a relationship with anyone, but then the closer Nile observed Andy and Booker, the more she started to feel like she had missed what was right under her nose. The desperation with which Andy cradled his face in her hands when they stumbled upon him in less than one piece in Goussainville; the jagged relief in her eyes when he blinked back awake again; the confident way Booker told Nile to wait for Andy’s signal. Even the painful moments that followed all added up to the same thing—the way, after Merrick, Booker kept his hands firmly pressing a bandage to Andy’s gunshot wound, the devastation etched in every line of his face incongruous with the fact that he had been the one to put it there; the fact that Andy had been the one to go down onto the beach and give him his sentence; the long hug between them afterwards and the way Andy was withdrawn in the car to the point of being nonverbal after they left Booker alone to face his fate.

Nile moped around for a few days, sinking into feeling sorry for herself that Andy apparently wasn’t going to jump her bones after all. The others didn’t seem to notice, probably chalking her grumpiness up to the natural strangeness of suddenly realising you were immortal—and besides, they were all distracted in the immediate aftermath. Joe and Nicky spent nearly a week curled up into each other, barely separating for a moment, and Andy spent most of her time gauging how much she could drink and how much she could push her body now that she was mortal. 

Nile got over it after a couple of weeks, even if she still had to swallow deeply and turn away when Andy, never self-conscious about her body, would come out of the shower barely covered in a towel or spontaneously start doing push-ups in the middle of the kitchen, which just wasn’t fair, really. 

Andy, though, was still in the same sour mood, more than a month into Booker’s exile, and nothing they said or did seemed to make any difference. “It must be hard for Andy,” Nile remarked one morning to Nicky as they were having a coffee out in the garden of their safe house near Rome. They were the two morning people on the team, and it had become a nice little ritual for them, their coffee and chats. “Being without Booker,” Nile explained, and Nicky just looked profoundly confused. “It’s hard on all of us,” he said with a sigh, “even if it was the right decision. But it’s probably hardest on Joe, honestly, Book was his best friend.”

Nile frowned, now equally confused herself. “Yeah, but...I mean...” she gestured vaguely, sure he would understand what she meant. Clearly, he didn’t, if the way his brow suddenly furrowed was anything to go by. “I mean, she’s without her partner,” Nile explained, wondering why she was having to spell it out for him so clearly, and then Nicky surprised her by letting out a small chuckle. “Oh, non è possibile—you thought that Andy and Sébastien were together?” He asked, so incredulously that Nile found herself getting immediately defensive, an old bad habit. “Yes! I mean, did you see how long that hug went on for outside the pub? And, well, obviously you didn’t see how broken up she was when we found him with half his guts missing in Goussainville, but she was wrecked, let me tell you.”

Nicky shook his head adamantly. “No, no—they are extremely close, you’re right, but it’s not like that. It’s like...how can I say it....Andy is the star around which he orbits. He would do anything for her.” His eyes became a bit sad, at that. “I think...what happened, I think he thought he was doing something for her then, that’s what makes it hurt so badly for her. But it’s not sexual; I’m not even sure if Booker could ever desire someone else, after his wife.”

“And you call _Joe_ the incurable romantic,” she mused with a soft whistle. “Besides, Booker’s not her type,” Nicky added with a wink, and Nile was about to ask him to expand on that a little, except that just then, Andy came outside to berate them for drinking the last of the coffee, and the conversation was dropped.

It was about a week later, Andy’s mood still in the dumps, when Joe clapped a hand on her shoulder. “What do you say, boss? Want to get away for a bit?” She opened her mouth as if to protest, but he pressed on. “I thought maybe we could head over to our house in Rimini, pass through San Marino on the way,” and that cracked a little smile from Andy. “You know all my weaknesses,” she muttered, but she sounded more cheerful than she had since the mess at Merrick’s.

Nile just raised an eyebrow, waiting for someone to give her an explanation, and Nicky obliged. “San Marino is the oldest surviving republic in the world,” he explained. “Back in the early 4th century, two stonemasons—Marino, for whom it’s named, and his close ‘friend’ Leo—“ Joe obligingly supplied the air quotes around ‘friend’—“came from what’s now Croatia, fleeing religious persecution, and gathered a couple of people up on Monte Titano in a little community. Eventually, a wealthy woman living in Rimini, who was the owner of the mountain, donated it to them so that they could stay living there.” Joe dramatically gestured to Andy with a grin. “Meet the wealthy donor,” he explained, and Andy chuckled and shrugged. “I’m not much for religion, but I also don’t believe people should be persecuted for it. Besides, he and Leo made a nice couple,” she added. “Anyway,” Nicky added. “Andy likes to stop by from time to time for old times’s sake.” 

“She also likes San Marino because they have a ton of weapons shops and cheap booze,” Joe added, and Andy smiled again—twice in one day. “Well, that doesn’t hurt, either. Alright, if you want to go, let’s go,” she agreed.

They left the next day, packing enough for a few days away, and drove cross country until they saw the mountaintop that was pretty much the entire country of San Marino, crowned with its three castle towers. As Nicky drove recklessly fast around the twists and turns of the road, Nile laughed, a bit giddy to be out and about after more than a month holed up in their safe house. This felt almost like when she had gone on road trips with her friends back home, and it was a nice feeling, to remember that not everything was different.

San Marino was tiny but charming, and Nile found herself enraptured with the views out over the neighbouring valleys and the cramped streets. “You owned all this once?!” she asked Andy in a hushed tone while the other woman carefully examined a crossbow for sale. Andy just shrugged, but the corners of her lips tilted slightly up. “Hey, it didn’t have any of this then, it was just a mountain,” she insisted, but she still looked pleased. 

They left just before sunset, the trunk of the car loaded with weapons and every kind of alcohol known to man, and made their way to Rimini, pulling into the parking lot of a medium-sized house right on the beach, a little ways outside the city centre. “Here’s home,” Joe said cheerfully, pulling a rusty set of keys out of his pocket. “We’ve stayed at this safe house fairly recently so it’s probably in pretty good shape.”

The house didn’t exactly have too many personal touches inside, but it was nice enough, and they had enough hot water for a shower before they headed down to the beach to get started on the mass of drinks and snacks they had bought in San Marino. 

Andy already seemed lighter than any of them had seen her since The Incident, as they had started to think of it, and the group was in such good spirits overall that Joe let it slip almost without thinking. “You know, Andy,” he said, squeezing Nicky’s hand. “Apparently Nile thought you and Booker were dating,” he said with a chuckle, and then immediately froze, as if realising he probably shouldn’t have brought it up.

Andy was silent for a moment, her face impassive, and then she burst out into a real laugh, the first one they had heard in so long. “Really, Nile?” She asked, taking a deep swig of her bottle of limoncello and then tossing it aside. Nile shrugged sheepishly, and Andy looked at her closer, a little contemplative. “Come walk with me for a few minutes,” she urged, getting up and reaching down to offer Nile a hand. “You know,” she remarked once they were out of the others’ earshot. “You’re not as far off base as the boys think,” she admitted. “I never told them because I didn’t want to make things weird and because it didn’t really matter, but Booker and I did kiss once, back in—oh, 1893 I think? We were utterly destroyed on absinthe and very lonely, and we stupidly thought it might help.” She chuckled. “It didn’t, needless to say. We love each other very much,” and then there was that flash of sadness that always came across when any of them thought about Booker, “but not like that. He’s not my type, anyway,” and okay, when Nicky had said the same thing, Nile had been curious, but now her curiosity was piqued, damn it.

“What is your type?” She blurted out before she could second-guess herself, and Andy grinned, that half-feral look that she got sometime. “Can’t you guess?” She asked, and then she got her arm around Nile’s waist somehow and threw her to the sand. 

Nile landed with a thunk, the wind knocked out of her, and blinked up at Andy, who still had that predatory look on her face. “What the fuck, Andy?” She asked, trying to figure out if something was sprained and then giving up since it would heal quickly enough anyway. “Come on, Nile,” Andy urged, and Nile didn’t know what she was asking for, exactly, but this woman managed to get her blood up like nobody else could, in more ways than one. Slowly, Nile got up, automatically shifting into a fighting stance, and Andy’s smirk widened, her feet solidly planted in the sand. “Come on,” she repeated, and then Nile was coming at her, a ball of energy. 

They tussled in the sand, and Nile didn’t even have to hold back on account of Andy’s newfound mortality because Andy was just that much better than her, so much better than her that when Nile finally got the upper hand, rolling on top of Andy and panting hard, grimacing at the sand which had gotten absolutely _everywhere_ , she knew that Andy must have let her cheat somehow. “What the fuck, Andy,” she repeated, nearly a whisper, and Andy looked almost uncharacteristically shy for a second. “Still can’t guess my type?” She asked, and then she pulled Nile down into a kiss.

She kissed like she fought, and Nile forgot the sand that had made its way into the crevices of her clothes, and she forgot how Joe and Nicky could probably still see them from where they were, and she forgot Booker’s exile and Andy’s mortality and how insane this new life was, and she just let herself kiss back, on and on until finally she had to break for air because she didn’t know yet what it was like to suffocate but she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out and ruin such a nice evening.

“I’m too old for you, you know,” Andy teased, and Nile grinned down at her. “That’s okay, Mommy,” she replied, fake sweetly, and Andy swatted her arm. “I’m going to give you such a spanking if you ever call me that again.” “Not exactly a deterrent,” Nile added, and then Andy was tugging her down again and she didn’t say anything more for a long, long time. 

**Author's Note:**

> And then Andy gets her immortality back because I say so and Booker comes home soon so nobody has to be sad :)


End file.
